Arthur Kirkland and The Sorting Hat
by SamuraiSpacePirates
Summary: Arthur Kirkland is a first-year wizard with style. On the train to school he meets two strange people, Lukas and Erika; together they form the Magic Trio! Pulling pranks, annoying the Maurauders and having fun! But at Hogwarts, something strange and scary is going down. As per usual. The Magic Trio races to solve the problem, finish their Potions homework and win the Quidditch Cup!
1. Prologue

**Pottertalia! Yes! I love Pottertalia! Hi, The Countess In Red here. With a new fanfiction. This one will be set in the time where James Potter and Co. were at Hogwarts. Later chapters though will include Harry and his friends. Anyways if you happened not to read the description too well, the Magic Trio will be the main characters in this story. If you don't know who the Magic Trio is, you need to know two things: 1. THEY ARE AWESOME- 2. It is composed of Norway, England and Romania. Oh and I'll be using my design for Romania, (I had one before Hima came up with his). My design is pretty much the same except for the fact that my design for Romania is a girl. They are not nations in this story so they'll be using their human names, I'll list those here. ENJOY!~ **

**EDIT EDIT EDIT! **

**-I drew a picture for this part of the story! The opening scene. You can check it out on my deviantArt! Since doesn't allow you to put links in fanfics *insert rage face here*, you can find the link to my dA on my profile, once you're on my dA, it'll be the first picture you see. (I know , I know, it's a bit of a hassle, but still! You must be curious about it!) **

_**England: Arthur Kirkland **_

_**Norway: Lukas Bondevik **_

_**Romania: Erika Popescu **_

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter, Hetalia or Doctor Who. **

Time, time that stretches on forever. That will never be destroyed. It is invisible, but yet ever so present. It can destroy rocks, gnaw down steel, bring down kings and their crowns, empires and towns there is nothing that can stop it, for it is invincible. As a great man once said: "Time is wibbly-wobbly". Ever so changeable, ever so strange. Though it has a routine, a pattern it follows. It is always with you, from the first chapter to the last. From beginning to end. From life till death. Time can go by fast when happiness is found, and can drag on forever in the darkest, longest and most uneventful of times.

Arthur was just beginning to figure this out now.

"I AM SO BORED!" the blond boy yelled, enraged, hurling his thick book across the room. The book landed on a blue vase, smashing it to the floor. Arthur crossed his arms and pulled his feet up onto the cashmere chair he sat in. He glared angrily at the broken pieces of pottery lying on the expensive carpeted floor. His emerald colored eyes squinted hard at one particularly large ornate piece lying a few feet from him. He was angry, angry at his boredom, at his parents and at his life in general. Arthur considered going to pick up the shards of vase but discarded the thought quickly; it would amuse his parents way too much.

-"You should go pick those up, Artie." The large portrait hanging between the two windows advised, one of the many portraits in the Kirkland library. Arthur called him the Window Man, as he was always wishing he could face the other way and see outside. Arthur got up off his chair and walked over to the portrait:

- "No way. No way in bloody hell. Never. Never ever. It's my birthday; I shouldn't have to pick things up." Arthur replied to the bearded man, crossing his arms in stubbornness.

-"And don't call me Artie." he added, furrowing his abnormally thick eyebrows at the painting. The Window Man smiled, you could barely see his mouth under his bushy black beard.

-"It's true; you don't turn eleven every day. I remember my eleventh birthday... But I won't spoil the surprise for you." He winked, and then went back to staring at the globe on his right, deep in thought.

Arthur already knew that when wizards turn eleven, they get their Hogwarts letter. It was an acceptance letter, to the United Kingdom's very own school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This had all been explained to him beforehand, but he wasn't sure if the letter would come on his birthday, later in the year, or when school started. Arthur went back to sit on his comfy chair, he had just settled in when he suddenly heard his father yell from behind the mahogany double doors of the library:

-"WHAT DID YOU DO, BOY?!"

Arthur knew his father would burst in through the doors at any moment. Afraid, he scrambled out of his seat and began to pick up the pieces of shattered vase. He picked up the largest shard and rapidly stuffed it into the pocket of his robes. The blond boy did the same for all the other pieces until he came to the very last one.

His father burst into the room followed quickly by his mother. Mr. and Ms. Kirkland were both purebloods, and so was the rest of their family. Anyone who dared marry a Muggle was outcast pretty much forever. As a result they were both very proud people and had high expectations for their only son. But little 10-turned-11 year old Arthur was being very rebellious as of late, making sarcastic remarks and just being overall grumpy. Mr. Kirkland was stricter with Arthur, often resorting to raising his voice, whereas Ms. Kirkland was very meek and dotted the blond boy with toys, candy and affection to try and calm down his grumpy mood swings. Effectively making him a bit of a spoiled brat. The Kirklands were very rich; they lived in the Kirkland Manor which was overlooking Monteria Village in Berkshire, a small half-wizarding town. Which, of course, the young boy's father owned as well.

-"Honey, Iggy dear, what is it? Has something happened? Are you hurt?" Ms. Kirkland fussed, rushing over to Arthur and checking him for injuries. The blond boy protested, shaking his head vigorously, trying to push his mother away from him.

Mr. Kirkland's cold gaze scanned the room, looking for the source of the loud noise. His emerald eyes landed on the empty pedestal where the ornate blue vase once stood and the one piece of pottery still lying on the tan carpet. Ms. Kirkland noticed it at the same time as her husband.

-"Artie, that was my favorite vase!" exclaimed Ms. Kirkland, tears forming in her bright blue eyes. Arthur looked down at his feet, feeling embarrassed. He hadn't meant to make his mother cry, but still, the vase had it coming.

-"Alice, let me handle this." Mr. Kirkland said; a sharp edge in his voice. Ms. Kirkland nodded, not replying.

The boy's father turned to face his son; he took a deep breath, his thick eyebrows scrunched up until they looked like kissing, black ferrets. Henry Kirkland started talking, very slowly:

-"Boy, what has gotten into you?! How could you upset your mother like this?! You have crossed the line recently, and I will not tolerate it! This acting out has to stop! I-" Arthur suddenly cut off his father, angry, he exclaimed:

-"What do you know anyways? You spend all your time in your office! All you want to do is make money!" A loud gasp could be heard from Alice Kirkland. Mr. Kirkland emerald eyes widened in shock and his face turned a deep shade of red. He inhaled sharply and began to yell:

-"HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO ME LIKE THAT YOU INSOLENT LITTLE BRAT! THIS IS THE LAST STRAW! YOU ARE-" the little 11 year old boy interrupted his father once again; he began shouting back at his father:

-"WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS SO BLOODY MEAN?! IT'S SO-" The portraits all around the room cringed and covered their ears. Suddenly without warning, Ms. Kirkland burst into tears;

-"My favorite v-v-v-vase! It was a gift fr-from Sophie!" she exclaimed, sobbing. Ms. Kirkland picked up the one last shard of pottery still lying on the floor and began to stroke it.

-"SEE WHAT YOU'VE DONE?! NOW YOUR MOTHER IS EVEN MORE UPSET! YOU ARE PATHET-"

-"...THE WORST FATHER! I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU! WHY D-"

-"My v-vase!"

A portrait of a small child hanging above the large oak desk in the corner started to wail and cry for his mother, adding to the growing commotion. Alice Kirkland began to cry harder, Arthur and Mr. Kirkland began to yell louder and louder and louder until... Out of the blue, a hoot and a flutter of wings interrupts the uproar. A large horned owl unexpectedly entered through an opened window, carrying an envelope closed with a red wax seal. Everyone fell silent. The owl glided majestically to Arthur and dropped the letter on his uncombed shock of blond hair.

Slightly shaking, Arthur Kirkland reached up and plucked the envelope off his head. He flipped it over to see who it was addressed to, his parents were both watching him carefully, eyes filled with hidden interest and curiosity. The fine writing on the front of the paper read:

_Mr A Kirkland _

_The Green Bedroom _

_Kirkland Manor, 32 Grand Goat Lane _

_Monteria _

_Berkshire_

-"I-It's for me." Arthur stated, surprise lining his voice. He nervously flipped over his slightly yellowed envelope, his parents still watching intently in silence.

At the back of the paper a red seal representing a crest which fastened the flap of the envelope to the back. The crest had four sections, one with a roaring lion in the center, another with a twisting snake, the third with a rodent of some sort looking up at the snake, Arthur guessed it was a badger but he wasn't too sure. The fourth section was orned with an eagle that stared at the roaring lion. And in the center of these four animals was a large swirly letter "H". It was his acceptance letter. His very own Hogwarts letter. Excited, Arthur peeled away the red wax and unfolded the first letter, it read:

_Dear Mr Kirkland,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all the necessary books and equipment. The term begins on September 1__st__, we await your owl no later than July 31__st__. _

_Yours sincerely, _

_Minerva McGonagall, _

_Deputy Headmistress _

-"Mum! Dad! It's my Hogwarts letter! I'm going to Hogwarts!" Arthur shouted, excited. A proud smile rushed over both his parent's faces. Alice Kirkland ran forward to embrace her son, muttering words of praise to him. Mr. Kirkland ruffled his only son's hair affectionately, laughing heartily. After a while, Arthur stepped out of his mother's overly tight hug and turned to his father, standing over him.

-"Now son, this doesn't mean I'm not still angry at you." Mr. Kirkland frowned, taking a more authoritarian tone, staring down at the 11 year old.

-"But this now means I can tell you all my stories from school!" he boomed, laughing. He beckoned his son to walk with him, Arthur trotted up merrily beside his blond father, looking up eagerly as Mr. Kirkland launched into a long tale about how he scored 200 points against Gryffindor when he was the star Chaser on the Slytherin Quidditch team. As the two walked away, Arthur's father proclaimed loudly:

-"Now, you'd better be on the Quidditch team, boy. Just like your father! And of course you'll be in Slytherin, otherwise we'll disown you!" Mr. Kirkland laughed at this last statement, not noticing that the blond boy had emitted a loud gulp and turned pale. Arthur nervously toyed with his fingers until they reached the large dark oak double doors, which the boy rushed to open for his father. The man in question swooped out of the library, his black robes swishing as he walked his distinctive walk, always taking unnecessarily long strides. Arthur quickly shut the door with a slam and raced to catch up with his father, who was still prattling on about what an amazing Chaser he used to be.

Alice Kirkland smiled at the now closed doors. She could just imagine her husband and son, laughing as they walked, telling tales about their school days. She hurriedly wiped her wet eyes and started to stride towards the same doors father and son had just used to exit the circular library and its towering shelves of knowledge. Alice Kirkland had her hand on the brass handles when she got a feeling, a feeling that told her to turn around. She swiveled on her heels and saw the portrait of the small redhead boy, the one that had been wailing just moments ago, and the one portrait that was bigger than the rest. The young boy smiled and waved, then sat back down the wooden rocking horse that occupied the background. The young boy swung back and forth with a wide smile on his face. Alice Kirkland gave a sad, watery smile to the painting, then quickly turning around to the door, exited the room, before anyone could see her shed a tear.

The emerald eyed 11 year old now sat on his bed, rethinking what his father had said:

_-"You'd better be in Slytherin or we'll disown you!" _

That was way too much pressure for the first day! Good grades were obtainable, he was clever enough already. Good friends were obtainable, even though he could be grumpy and mean, he was always told he was a charming _"lad". _But he couldn't decide in what house that dumb hat would put him in! What if he got stuck in HufflePuff? Arthur moaned; his parents would surely lock him up in the attic or something! Arthur slouched lower on his bed.

These thoughts would torment him for the next five months.

**So many words! Feel free to drop a comment or follow/favorite. Just so you know, I used April 23 for little Artie's birthday. So I guess 5 just isn't a random whole number after all! (Unless I counted wrong).**

**So this series of fics is going to be a bit like the HP Series. I'm planning to have one fic per "book". As I said before, this "book series" is set in Maurauders time. So it'll have the Magic Trio as kids and the Maurauders. In the next "book series" I'm going to write the Magic Trio as adults, hanging out with little Harry Potter. Who here liked Sassy!England? *raises hand* I did! I'm so going to write more of him giving sass to people. 3. **

**THANKS FOR READING! **

**-The Countess In Red**


	2. Red Eyes and Sugar Highs

**NEXT CHAPTER! I'm going to put line breakers in but in case that doesn't work out... Well... (see bottom)**

**Sorry for the wait! This chapter is going to be less intense than the first one, more comedy, less serious. I hope that's okay! :P Do you guys need a reminder for the human names? Nah. I think you readers are smart enough to remember right? Awesome. **

**BOLD: A/N **

**NORMAL: Story **

**Italics: Usually used for flashbacks. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia, Harry Potter, The Grinch or any other references to things that I stick in here. I own nothing but the plot. **

"RUUUUUUUUUUN!" the unexpectedly loud cry was heard across the train station on that fine September morning. Three pairs of feet were seen charging through the crowd of commuters, echoing across the pavement, like tiny hippopotamuses. The Muggles taking the train at King's Cross station that day were treated to a very bizarre sight; two oddly dressed adults running with a little blond boy sporting caterpillar like eyebrows, all sprinting towards Platform 9, carrying a trunk. Many of the people standing on the various embarkment platforms felt the need to turn their heads to look at the strange trio; the young blond boy was dressed normally, wearing slightly baggy jeans and a navy tee-shirt under his dark green hoodie. But the adults, the adults were what made this sight so hilarious. Their attire resembled the dress of the stereotypical American tourist. The tall man was wearing the most awful, loud, Hawaiian print shirt one could possibly find, which was peeking out the bottom of an equally dire checkered jumper adorned with pockets! Large, obvious, pockets! How could one possibly want pockets on their jumper?! He also wore a pair of ill-fitting khaki capris that only revealed his ankles. The blonde woman was dressed almost identically, except her pocket-adorned jumper was a revolting shade of neon pink. The Muggles at the station were so horrified and blinded by the sheer atrociousness of the color, that they turned away after having stared long enough for their brains to process the ghastly state of the adult's fashion sense.

They turned away just long enough for the family and their trunk to slip through a solid wall and onto Platform 9 and 3/4. The man in the loud Hawaiian shirt gasped,

"That was quite some exercise. Right little man?" he said, out of breath, turning to address the boy.

The boy smiled, he was always running around outside like that, so this was nothing! He pulled out his wand, his very own cedar wand with a dragon heartstring core. The blond addressed as "little man" adored his wand and couldn't wait to use it.

"Now, now Arthur Kirkland, remember you can't do magic out of school yet," said the blonde woman, Arthur's mother, Ms. Kirkland, wagging her finger at her son. "And you'd better get on the train, Iggy dear, or it'll leave without you! And don't forget your trunk." She added as Arthur started off toward the red-painted Hogwarts Express. Mr. Kirkland, the checkered-pocket-jumper man, ruffled his son's hair while Ms. Kirkland took out an embroidered handkerchief and dabbed the corners of her eyes. Arthur took his trunk, which was rather heavy, and walked over to one of the train's open doors. As he was about to climb in he heard his father yell,

"Win lots of House Points for Slytherin, boy! And I don't want to be hearing that you've lost any!"

Arthur gulped and grew pale, as he did every time his father mentioned him being in Slytherin. He just knew that the dumb Sorting Hat would put him in HufflePuff. Arthur could just picture the long walk home, alone, from Platform 9 and 3/4. He didn't glance back at his parents as he clambered onto the train and looked around. He spied a girl about his age discussing something rather energetically with another blond boy his age near the entrance door he was standing in. Arthur sighed and put his trunk down, the train doors were about to close when his mother came racing up, brandishing a brown paper bag.

"Iggy! Iggy dear! You've forgotten your lunch!" exclaimed Ms. Kirkland as she hustled over and handed him the bag grasped in her finely manicured nails.

Arthur heard the boy and the girl his age sniggering behind him and he just knew they had heard his mother call him "Iggy dear". Great, he wasn't even at school yet and he'd already been embarrassed. Arthur took the bag, rather forcefully, out of this mother's hand and muttered a "goodbye" just as the train doors closed and Hogwarts Express rumbled off.

The blond boy whipped around to face the boy and the girl who were still standing in the same spot, still giggling, Arthur's emerald eyes narrowed and he stepped forward towards them,

"What, are you laughing at?" he said, slowly pronouncing each word, trying to sound intimidating.

The girl raised her head and tilted it slightly to the side; she straightened her back to look at him. Arthur suddenly realized in embarrassment, that she was taller than him. He also noticed that she had ruby red eyes and a slight fang protruding from the left side of her mouth. It made her look much scarier. Much scarier. The other blond boy did, in fact, not look very intimidating. He just stood, expressionless, analyzing Arthur with his deep blue orbs. Arthur remarked that this boy's hair was several shades paler than his, almost looking platinum, but still blonde. The red eyed girl smirked,

"You're in the same year as me right? I mean, you're eleven? Like me?" she said, not at all in response to Arthur's question.

She distractedly tucked a strand of long honey brown hair behind her ear, still staring at the newcomer. Arthur balled his fists, he wanted answers to his questions, and he wasn't about to be pushed around and interrogated by a girl. Plus, she was still wearing that stupid arrogant smirk. The other blond boy just kept watching the emerald eyed Arthur; he didn't seem to be doing anything in particular. Except for breathing. Arthur Kirkland decided that he wouldn't be getting anywhere if he didn't answer her questions first, but that meant he wasn't planning to be polite about it.

"Yeah. So?" he replied, a heavy dose of sass lining his voice.

"Oh, okay. I'm Erika by the way." she said, somewhat taken aback by Arthur's attitude.

"And this is Lukas," she added, gesturing to the other blonde boy. Lukas gave Arthur a small nod, and then began to adjust the sleeve of his pale blue coat. Arthur said nothing; he would not give this annoying girl the satisfaction of him telling her his name. There was an awkward silence, where neither party said anything or did anything at all. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Erika coughed lightly and said,

"Well, we'd better get back to our compartment, I guess we might see you in class then" she said, looking at Arthur with a puzzled expression, like she didn't understand why he was being so hostile. After a pause, she added "Iggy, dear."

Then Erika and Lukas left, snickering to each other. Arthur picked up his trunk and walked off in a huff. He searched the entire train for a compartment with space and kids his age, but they were all full or were occupied by older kids who wouldn't spare him a second glance. The only one he found that fulfilled those two requirements contained the buffoons from earlier, none other than Lukas and Erika. Who were both sitting cross-legged across from one another. Lukas was reading some kind if book in a foreign language that Arthur didn't understand and Erika seemed to be talking to him, although Lukas seemed not to be paying much attention, it certainly didn't stop Erika from talking about almost everything. Arthur nervously slid the compartment door open; they both stopped what they were doing and turned to look at him.

"Eh...can I... maybe... sit here?" Arthur asked looking at the annoying red eyed girl and the other blond boy, as they had now been nicknamed by him.

Erika turned her gaze to look at Lukas, as if asking him whether or not they should let him sit. But he just shrugged and returned to his literature, so the girl looked back at the boy standing in the doorway and muttered,

"Sure,"

So Arthur tugged at his trunk for what he was determined to make the last time that train ride and hefted it up onto the overhead shelving racks. He then proceeded to sit down next to the other blonde boy and his foreign words. Erika looked successively at both boys, then turned in Arthur direction and asked,

"So, what's your name? Wait! Never mind, I can see it on your trunk's name tag," she looked up, and then started to read the tag out loud. Arthur assumed that this annoying red eyed girl was quite strange indeed.

"Arthur... Kurtiland?" she said, tilting her head and bringing her gaze back to Arthur. Erika smiled,

"That's a funny name, Kurtiland, that doesn't even sound like a real name at all!" she exclaimed.

Arthur rolled his eyes in exasperation, he had written his nametag in a hurry, his slouched, sloppy writing was almost unreadable, but he didn't think that anyone could mistake his last name for something as stupid as "Kurtiland".

"That's because it's not my last name, its Kirkland not Kurtiland, idiot," he corrected, emphasising the insult at the end. Sass was a strong point that Arthur possessed; he could make any sentence sound rude. Although this wasn't a very good thing.

Erika huffed, offended, and narrowed her eyes, glaring at him. Arthur glared back. He could win this staring contest no problem. This annoying, red eyed, wannabe tough girl didn't scare him one bit. Maybe Arthur got just a little scared when he saw her grit her teeth and crack her knuckles, passing a not-so-subtle message. Lukas looked up from his book of foreign words, sensing the tension in the air, and looked successively at Arthur and his friend. Suddenly, Erika got an idea; Erika got a wonderful, awful idea. The best comeback in the world had suddenly popped into her head. How could she not have thought of it sooner? She smirked arrogantly and said:

"At least Kurtiland doesn't sound as dumb as..." Erika snickered, "Iggy,"

Lukas looked like he wanted to start laughing but was holding it in whilst trying to look emotionless.

"You just got served," the other blond boy said, looking at Arthur with a hidden look of glee in his eyes.

Arthur could feel his face getting hot; he just knew that he had turned a deep shade of scarlet. He needed to do something about this, Arthur looked around the compartment, trying to find some embarrassing materiel to use against them, and he found it. That embarrassing materiel was a letter tucked under the corner of a little purple bag that, he assumed, belonged to Erika. That letter was addressed to a certain "RoRo" and in parentheses, in much neater writing was carefully inscribed the name Erika. Arthur was good at deductions, a result of reading too many Muggle detective stories. Arthur adopted a smirk to match the annoying red-eyed girl's.

"Well, Iggy isn't as dumb sounding as RoRo," he proclaimed in a know-it-all tone, but loud enough so that he almost shouted the last word to make sure that everyone had heard.

Erika went tomato red, her jaw dropping slightly in shock. She turned to look over at Lukas and mouthed

"How does he know?"

But she saw that Lukas was holding back laughter, making almost the same face he did when Erika had insulted Arthur with his embarrassing nickname previously. The youngest Kirkland noticed this and puffed out his chest in pride, he had successfully gotten Lukas on his side! Ha! Take that annoying red eyed girl! Erika glared at the other blonde boy this time and made a face

"Humph, RoRo still isn't as stupid sounding as Norge is," she said, sneering at Lukas.

"Actually, I don't mind it that much. Norge sounds nice." Lukas replied smartly, giving her a half-smile back.

"Well... Um... Norge rimes with... with...with pordge!" she said, hesitating. A painful 11 year old attempt at a comeback.

"That's not even a real word!" interjected Arthur, who took his limited vocabulary very seriously. And he also wanted to join in on the action.

"Yeah it is!" replied Erika, turning to him.

"No it's not!" said Arthur stubbornly. He was 90% sure that "pordge" was not in the dictionary.

"Yes it is!"

"No it's no-ot!"

"Yes! I am always right!"

"No way!"

"Yes way"

"No!"

"Yes!"

"NO!"

"YES"

"YES!NO!YES!NO!YES!NO!YES!NO!YES!NO!YES! NO NO NO! YES YES YES! NO! YES! NONONO! YESYESYES! NO!"

Erika then stopped the yes-no battle by not yelling "yes" when it was her turn. She huffed and swung her head to the side, very much dramatically. Looking at Arthur out of the corner of her eye, she declared,

"I just invented it now."

Then, out of the blue, something unexpected happened. Something unexpected that began the start of something great. Something very great indeed. This something would last forever. This something was friendship.

All three children in that compartment, on the Hogwarts Express that day burst out laughing. Even the evermore expressionless Lukas stifled a giggle and began to laugh with the others. Erika laughed so hard she fell off the bench and onto the red carpet floor, quite literally rolling on the floor. Arthur was bent over in two, holding his sides as they were beginning to develop a cramp and Lukas threw back his head and laughed as loud as the two other children.

After the laughter had died down and the trio had received several strange stares from the other students passing by, Arthur spoke up,

"Erika, you are a strangely funny person"

The girl in question smiled,

"So I've been told," she replied.

The sound of a cart being rolled down the train hallway was now heard by the group and interrupted the silence. Their childlike eyes widened as they saw a chariot stuffed with candy, stop in front of their compartment door. Arthur could just feel himself salivating.

"Would any of you dears like to buy some sweets?" asked the petite woman pushing the chariot.

The three first years looked at each other, and then simultaneously began to rummage around for their Galleons.

32 packages of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, 110 packs of Twirly Twisted Licorice and 55 chocolate frogs later, Erika was lying down on her side, almost asleep, a Twirly Twisted Licorice still in her fingers and Arthur was slouched back, sleepily examining a Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean, trying to determine whether or not it was safe to eat, he also had chocolate covering the left side of his face. Lukas, who had warned them before about eating too many sweets, was observing both his seat-mates with a look of extreme exasperation on his face.

Then, the view from outside the window changed, instead of showing green pastures and mountains and endless cows, you could see a castle rising in the distance, invisible to Muggles of course. But not to wizards like them.

"Look, it's Hogwarts," said Lukas, scooting himself closer to the window to get a better view.

"WHAT?" yelled Erika in excitement, sitting up abruptly and shooting up from her almost asleep state. She hurled herself beside Lukas to see. Arthur stirred and then realized they were approaching the school, his new school.

"Really? Where? Let me see!" he asked with equal excitement, squishing himself between Lukas and Erika to also look out the window.

The castle looked great, it sat on top of high cliffs and beside it was a magnificent lake that you could cross to get to the school. Tall, powerful and orned with towers, the building had a distinctive air of eeriness, rising out of the fog as it did that day, but it gave it a more authentic, cool look. Hogwarts already looked like home to the three children, faces pressed up against the window pane.

"Awesome..." they chorused, staring wide eyed at the castle and its lovely lake.

Arthur suddenly turned his head to look at Lukas, then Erika,

"We'd better get into our robes,"

The trio collected their things and marched on to the bathrooms, through the hallway, together, robes in hand. Excitement clear in their eyes as the train approached Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Home to countless hours of fun and countless dangers.

**Holy, this chappie is long! I hope you all like it! I realized the first chapter was kind of intense so I tried to lighten the mood a little here. Oh and I have nothing against the stereotypical American tourist or any American tourists! I just needed to find a way to describe what Mr. and Ms. Kirkland were wearing. **

**Yay, we get to meet Lukas and Erika! I'm not going to include the Maurauders or the others from the whole "the time James Potter was at school" crew. Not yet. And if you're wondering if any other Hetalia characters will make an appearance, I don't know, yet. They might, they might not. I don't want to have to manage too many different characters. That would be a disaster! **

**They're so cute though, the little Magic Trio, just having fun. I wanted to have the whole "they meet on the train" thing to only take up one chapter 'cause I want them to get to school! But, what's going to happen at school? Dum dum dum! **

**Anyways, drop a review or follow/favorite if you liked or have any constructive criticism for me. **

**THANKS FOR READING **

**-The Countess In Red **


	3. Dangerous Duffel Bags and Purple Mist

**New Chapter! I'm sorry the upload took so long, I was away for a week and now I have TONS of homework to do. Please you guys, TELL ME if this is too intense or serious or fancily written or awesome or whatnot! I really do appreciate your feedback! Special thanks to everyone who followed, favorite and reviewed the story so far. Let's go on to the story! Now, the Magic Trio is actually at Hogwarts! Come, Nagini. ONWARDS! **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, Hetalia or any other things referenced here. Only the plot is mine and copyrighted (A.K.A- NO STEALING my stuff). **

The red train pulled up with a screech to the Hogwarts railway station. As soon as the train had stopped, eager students of all ages flooded out onto the platform. The older students filed away towards the carriages, pulled by seemingly invisible horses, but the first year students grouped around a tall man waving his arms and calling out:

"FIRST YEARS! FIRST YEARS! OVER HERE FIRST YEARS! Oi you! First-year! Red head! Over here!"

The boy who was being called at whirled around and promptly tripped over his wizard robes, falling flat on his face. This earned him several snickers from his future classmates. The tall man hoisted him up by the collar of his robes abruptly, the red-head boy dangled in the air for a few seconds before being dropped down to the ground unceremoniously. The first-years grouped together on the platform looked at each other questioningly as the red-headed boy ran back fearfully to the center of the group.

Arthur Kirkland and his friends trailed out, one of the last to leave the train. They all turned their heads to look at the tall man who was yelling for their age group. Lukas was behind the pair, visibly struggling with his heavy green carry-on bag that was literally bursting at the seams with stuff. Arthur looked around to the other blond boy and walked back to help Lukas with his bag, he grabbed the other duffel bag handle and almost fell to his knees under the weight. Erika noticed this and ran back to help.

"Lukas, might I ask, why do you have so much stuff?" asked Arthur, nervously eying the bag, as if he was afraid that it was volatile and could explode at any moment.

"And what did you put in this bag?!" exclaimed Erika, lifting the bag at the back, pulling with all her might.

Lukas sighed, and tugged the bag along, followed by the other two eleven year olds who were using all their muscles in trying to keep this bag from falling onto the concrete of the platform.

"Ugh, it's my mom. She worries way too much about me. Look at what she told me to bring!" the other blond boy said, pulling out an oval object that resembled a spin top from the pocket of his robes. It immediately started whirring and making all kinds of noise. Lukas frowned at it and tapped it a couple times like to make sure it was still working. Erika leaned closer and peered at it,

"Is that a... Sneakoscope?" she asked "Your mother made you pack a Sneakoscope? Seriously? What, is she afraid you're going to lie about your homework? Or that someone will turn your hair green with a Change-Color charm?" she laughed, the fang on the left side of her teeth was clearly visible now, and Arthur couldn't help himself from wondering where she got it from.

"I'd be careful, if I were you. I saw _Alfred F. Jones' Book of 1000 Hilarious Pranks_ on top of her trunk earlier," Arthur whispered to Lukas, grinning at him. Arthur Kirkland just knew he was going to have an excellent time at Hogwarts, he loved nothing more than setting up a good prank and getting a good laugh out of it, and he was sure that these two would be game.

"Ack!" Erika suddenly exclaimed, the carry-on had been lifted up into the air, way above their heads. The tall man who was calling out for the first years was standing above them, holding the duffel bag in his massive hand. He sported a large scruffy black beard and equally messy hair. He wore a long over coat and huge working boots. Arthur thought that he must be half-giant, there was no way any ordinary man could be that enormous.

"First-years?" he asked, in a thick Scottish accent. The trio nodded, clearly intimidated.

Arthur looked over at Erika and noticed that the red-eyed girl had her mouth open in shock and eyes wide. Arthur thought it was quite rude to stare at him in such a way so his more-or-less bumped her as a way of saying, "Get yourself together, you're being rude!"

"That's what I thought, come this way! No no I'll carry yer bag, young man. Can't have you dragging it all 'round the school now can I?" he asked them. The small-ish eleven year olds had to jog lightly to keep up with his long strides. Arthur was surprised someone could take longer strides than his father.

"Yeap, I think yer all the last of 'em, WALK DOWN TO THE LAKE FIRST-YEARS! I'LL MEET YOU THERE! Now, don't be shy, go on!" The bearded man called out to the group standing clueless on the platform, the first-years all shuffled their feet and began to walk down. The trio were still walking alongside the tall man, Arthur was internally debating whether they should run and catch up with the others or stay walking with this man, who seemed to be in charge.

"Well, he is swinging that green bag rather dangerously," Arthur thought to himself, but he knew the bearded giant would be offended if they all decided to run off on him, so he scooted a bit to the left, away from the bag and kept walking.

"That duffel bag is deadly," Erika whispered to Arthur, she had noticed the wrecking ball bag and moved away as well, almost bumping into him.

"Deadly duffel bags, always something you have to watch out for as a wizard," Arthur replied, earning a couple laughs from his new friends.

"Rude of me not to introduce myself to ya, I'm 'Agrid by the way. Apprentice Groundskeeper. And what are yer names?" he continued, the trio hadn't noticed that he'd been talking the entire time they'd been walking.

"Well Hagrid, I'm Erika! And the one with the blue eyes is Lukas. The one with the enormous eyebrows is Iggy dear, ahem... I mean Arthur." The red-eyed girl announced, pointing at each of them as she named them off.

Arthur gave her his best "you are so dead" glare when she called him Iggy and waved up at Hagrid. Lukas didn't even give any sign of hello; he just looked up at the giant man with his ice-cold stare and went back to looking ahead of them into the growing fog.

"We're here! Alright first-years, get into the boats! Yes, Robbie, the boats do row themselves, you don't have to worry about guiding them, and we'll head up to the castle. Everybody in!" Hagrid exclaimed.

Some of the witches and wizards looked nervous about getting into little wooden rickety rowboats at night time but eventually with a little coaxing everyone was seated in a boat. Erika, Lukas and Arthur were all seated in a boat with four other students, who introduced themselves as Jenny Vanstone, Cadmus Klimek, Kallista Dolighan and Thebe Cannons. Erika was enthusiastic, chatting idly about anything and everything, which broke the awkward silence that occurred after introductions. Strangely enough, Jenny Vanstone was even more talkative than her, even Erika quieted down after a while. It was obvious to Arthur, that Jenny Vanstone would most likely be a HufflePuff.

Arthur enjoyed trying to figure out what houses different witches and wizards were from or would be in, and he was quite good at it, if he didn't say so himself. Arthur looked back at Cadmus, he seemed more the quiet type, Arthur tried engaging in conversation with him but it seemed like Cadmus Klimek thought he was oh-so more intelligent than the blond boy. Cadmus also had a habit of pushing his glasses back up his face by in between the two lenses with his index finger right in the middle of his sentence, even if they hadn't slid down at all. Arthur found this very annoying. So he simply turned back to look at the lake and the fog obscuring any kind of view of the castle.

"Hmph, he's probably going to Ravenclaw, they always think they're so much above everyone else." Arthur thought grumpily. Whatever, he didn't need to be friends with a snooty brat.

There was suddenly a commotion heard at the very back of the boat, Kallista and Thebe seemed to be arguing quietly about something or other, their voices escalating gradually as the discussion went on. Lukas looked as he had jumped in the conversation as well, he only had to say a few words and both the eleven year olds quieted down. This made Arthur somewhat nervous, the other blond boy seemed to have a lot of influence over others, and this could work to Arthur's advantage, or turn against him. Even though he didn't seem very approachable, people seemed to trust Lukas' judgement, he also sounded smart when he spoke. Arthur had a sinking feeling that his new friend would be placed in Ravenclaw, a house that he thought he had no chance of being sorted into. He hadn't considered that he might be separated from his friends and end up all alone. Arthur pondered this for a while when he heard the annoying red eyed girl Erika exclaim, right in Jenny's ear,

"LOOK! IT'S HOGWARTS!"

Everyone in the parade of rowboats looked up and gasped, except for Jenny Vanstone who was cleaning out her ear with her index.

The castle was an indescribable sight, stone turrets loomed, and thousands of windows pooled light outside the castle. Hogwarts was a huge, rambling looking castle, with a jumble of towers and battlements littered all over the building. It was an impossible building, Arthur thought, because it was held together by magic. It was like the medieval castles in books, but more fantastical, like the kind of castle you'd expect a dragon to emerge from any minute. All eyes were fixed on the castle, all the first-years observed this magical sight in silence and awe.

The trio of students knew this was a sight they would never forget.

O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O

Erika bounced up in between Arthur and Lukas; she was grinning like crazy and looking all around at the interior of the castle, taking it all in.

"Wow! This is so cool isn't it? I mean, just look at the staircases, they move! This place is so full of magic, I can just feel it," She did a slow circle on spot, looking at the ceiling and stairwells above. The two blondes looked up as well. Arthur felt so overwhelmed by the sights of this amazing place, his eyes grew to the size of saucers. Suddenly at the top of the main staircase a wiry woman emerged above the group of excited first-years.

"First-years, may I have your attention please. I am Professor McGonagall, Transfiguration teacher at Hogwarts. You will proceed into the Great Hall in a few moments. No mischief and fooling around will be tolerated; this moment will dictate the rest of your school life. When you are in the Great Hall, you will step forward when your name is called. That is all. I look forward to seeing some of you in Gryffindor." She said, as she spun around to face the gigantic double doors which slowly creaked open to reveal a dining area packed with people.

The first-years lined up single file and walked down the aisle in between two tables, the Great Hall had fallen silent and all eyes were on the group. Arthur felt nervous, this was the moment that decided whether his face would be burned off the family portrait or he would become the rich heir to "Kirkland Specialty Potions and Draughts".

The tall wiry lady from earlier stepped forward and placed an old, worn wizard hat on a wooden chair at the front of the hall. Then, much to the newest student's surprise, the hat opened at a tear near the brim, forming some sort of mouth. The hat then began to sing an entrancing song about the four Hogwarts founders and the qualities each house was attributed to. Erika and Lukas seemed to be listening intently, but Arthur could feel a bead of sweat rolling down his face. He had to concentrate on not running away and staying in place. After the hat had finished and the whole hall clapped, Professor McGonagall took out an excessively long roll of parchment and began reading off names in alphabetical order. Adder, Sidney was first to be called up, he sat down in the chair. After a few moments of sitting still, he finally realized that you were supposed to put on the hat. Sidney stuffed the hat quite brutally onto his head, a few moments later the hat cried out, "GRYFFINDOR!" and Sidney Adder was sent over to a table filled with clapping wizards and witches donning red and gold ties. Arthur turned around to his friends,

"What?! My brother was going on about drinking a potion that would turn you into an ant and then surviving an anteater attack!" Erika exclaimed, annoyed. Arthur snickered along with Lukas as Bainbridge, Io was called up.

"My brothers told me that we had to cast a Patronus spell, which are insanely difficult," the other blond boy added, sighing, like he couldn't believe that he bought something so ridiculous. Erika grinned,

"They don't look that hard, my mom does it all the time. They're kind of pretty to look at, but I'm not sure what they're supposed to do," she said. Lukas was about to reply when the trio heard Professor McGonagall call out,

"Bondevik, Lukas!"

There was a particularly loud cheer from the Gryffindor table, Arthur turned to look and he spotted a blond boy with spiky, gravity defying hair yelling happily. He also spotted a particularly tall boy with blond hair and glasses clapping politely alongside the loud one.

Lukas stepped forwards and walked all the way to the chair where he sat down; he placed the hat delicately on his head as if he was afraid it would eat him. Both Erika and Arthur leaned forwards, watching carefully. The hat looked like it was thinking hard, it continued like this for a long time. Arthur leaned towards Erika and whispered,

"He might be a hatstall," Erika looked back at him and shrugged her shoulders as if to say "Maybe, I don't know".

After what seemed like forever the hat opened its mouth and shouted,

"SLYTHERIN!"

Lukas quietly got up off his seat, took the hat off delicately and went to sit down with a group of clapping Slytherin students. Arthur glanced over to the cheering boy from before, he looked shocked. The other boy next to him remained expressionless; Arthur assumed these were the brothers Lukas was talking about.

Time seemed to fly after that, Erika and Arthur were discussing the Patronus spell as Cannons, Thebe was sent to HufflePuff. At times, they would look over to Lukas, who seemed to be keeping his head down at the Slytherin table. A boy with long, blond, almost white hair seemed as he was leading the discussion at the table, Arthur could see a shining prefect badge on his robes.

"That's Lucius Malfoy. I heard he's part of the wannabe-Death-Eaters group in Slytherin, if you can believe the rumors, I guess". Erika told Arthur in a secretive voice, the blond boy turned to her, raising a gigantic eyebrow, as if questioning how she knew this fact considering she'd only been at Hogwarts for about half an hour.

"My brother. He's the one over there, black hair, blue eyes. No, not him. The one next to the red head girl with huge glasses. Yes, that's him." She said, designating her brother through the crowd of kids at the Sytherin table. Her brother was laughing loudly and joking around with a couple other boys his age.

Arthur nodded and looked up at the Professor who was still naming off names, she called up Kirkland, Arthur after Lupin, Remus was sent to the Gryffindor table. Arthur inhaled deeply as he stepped forward and began to walk to the stupid hat that seemed to be smiling in enjoyment at Arthur's nerves. He faintly acknowledged Erika patting him on the shoulder and wishing him good luck as he passed rows of tables and students all the way up to the wooden chair. He sat himself down, straightening out his posture and placed the hat on his head.

"_Hmmm... Interesting." _

Arthur could hear the quiet whisper of the hat resonate inside his head. He closed his eyes and prayed for Slytherin as the hat continued to hum and haw inside his brain. Suddenly, something peculiar and frightening happend,

"_I think, you'd be awful even in HufflePuff, you terrible good-for-nothing boy. _

_You shall die by the hand of snakes, _

_A stormy afternoon next to the lake; _

_Your friends shall also perish before you. _

_I will enjoy this greatly and I wish for it soon. _

_But I must wait for my cue." _

Arthur's emerald eyes shot open, the hat's voice had suddenly changed into something much more deep.

"That is really awful poetry," thought Arthur, perplexed. Arthur felt suddenly felt scared, what if the hat when crazy and swallowed him whole? And who was speaking through the hat? The hat's voice then changed again back to normal.

"_What was I saying? Ahem, yes, yes. Your house placement. I think I'd better be..." _

"SLYTHERIN!" the hat called out to the audience. Arthur stood up abruptly and fist pumped happily. He took off the hat and put in back on the chair. He made a mental note to talk to Lukas and Erika about this later. The blond boy ran over to the clapping students and quickly sat down next to Lukas.

"Now we just have to hope that Erika'll be here too!" Arthur exclaimed joyfully. He wouldn't be shunned after all! He was going to write a letter to his parents to tell them straight after they got settled in their houses. He began to chat idly with Lukas as Klimek, Cadmus was put into Ravenclaw.

In no time at all, Popescu, Erika was called up after Potter, James was sorted into Gryffindor. The black haired boy that Erika had pointed out as her brother earlier cheered for her as she walked up to the front of the room and dramatically swished up the hat up from the chair and placed it on her head. After a few moments, the hat called out something, although it sounded quite confused by now,

"GRYFF-RAVEN-SLYTHERIN!"

Erika stood up and hesitated, she didn't know which house the hat had meant when it had called out two houses before changing its mind. The red-eyed girl stayed planted in place until Arthur and Lukas waved her over to the Slytherin table frantically, not wanting to see their friend go to any other house. Erika noticed them and spun on her heels quickly to march over to the table. All the Slytherin students slowly started clapping for her, following Erika's brother's lead. The whole Great Hall seemed confused as to what had just occurred, but Professor McGonagall rushed to continue the Sorting, calling up Quintan, Julian.

"Well, that was weird," Erika proclaimed as she sat down in between the two boys, after waving to her brother. The trio looked at each other; they didn't think something like that had even happened before, and it looked like it was making the teachers nervous.

"Did the hat say anything strange to you while you were wearing it?" Arthur asked his friends, eager to find out if they had had the same experience that he did.

"Nope, it just stayed silent most of the time. It occasionally muttered something but I couldn't quite make it out," said Erika, looking back at him.

"Same here. Did it say something to you?" asked Lukas, furrowing his eyebrows and leaning across Erika and towards Arthur.

"Yeah, it said something strange but I'll tell you later," Arthur Kirkland said, turning his attention back to the Sorting just in time to see Regan, Reagan sent to HufflePuff.

Out of the blue, something peculiar happened, not for the first time that day. The Sorting Hat started emitting plumes of dark purple smoke. The students of Hogwarts gasped as the smoke started to form a shape similar to that of a snake that swirled upwards towards the star-painted ceiling of the Great Hall. A silver-bearded man sitting at the head of the teachers table rose suddenly and was about to draw his wand when the Sorting Hat loudly whispered in an intimidating dark voice,

"_Death." _

And then, in a wisp of purple smoke, the Sorting Hat was gone.

**Wow, cliffhanger! Good for Artie, he got sorted into the house he wanted, but what was up with that scary threat given to him by the hat? This is why I don't write poetry people, I CAN'T FIND GOOD RYTHMES FOR ANYTHING! And I tried to make a song for the Sorting Hat to sing, I really tried. But I can't find words that rhythm and I DON'T DO POETRY! **

**Cookie to whoever can guess who Lukas' two brothers were! (Pretty easy though, right?) I incorporated some more Hetalia and Harry Potter characters into this chapter. I decided I will be adding more Hetalia characters, but in minor roles, like siblings, and random students, and maybe DADA professors, and random teachers and stuff like that. Not anything major though. Anyways leave a follow/favorite if you are liking this so far and even better, drop a review! Those are awesome! Thanks again for reading! **

**-TCIR (The Countess In Red) **


	4. Annoying Brothers and Unknown Others

**I'm back guys! Hello! Next chappie of Arthur Kirkland and the Sorting Hat! Teehee. **

**Thanks so much to everyone who followed, favorite and reviewed! Wow, I never expected this much of a reaction! Giant internet cookies your way. Anyways enough talking and onto the story! (If you're even reading this... .) **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, Hetalia or The Jackson 5. **

Arthur jumped as a loud alarm-like whirring sound suddenly resounded throughout the Great Hall. He turned towards the sound of the noise to see Lukas holding his Sneakscope, which was making a great deal of obnoxious noise that apparently, could not be turned off. Several students at the Slytherin table gave the platinum haired boy the evil eye, and then returned to their hushed conversations.

"Stupid thing," mumbled Lukas, poking around the device to see if there was some kind of giant red 'off' button. Frustrated, he ended up stuffing his Dark Detecting Device into the deepest pocket of his robes to muffle out the screeching.

After the noise was completely cancelled out, there was an uncomfortable silence throughout the Great Hall. You could just smell the anxiety floating around in the air.

Then suddenly, a great commotion erupted and travelled around the room until almost the whole student body was yelling. Many of the older students started taking loudly and nervously with each other, wondering what had happened. A few questions were even thrown up to the teachers table, only to be met by dead silence. It seemed as if they hadn't quite taken in the series of strange events and were just deciding what course of action to take. Some of the more sensitive first years even started crying and a peculiarly dressed older pale blond Ravenclaw guy was yelling about... Crumple-Horned Snorkacks?

Arthur simply looked around, confused. He was half expecting the teachers to jump up and yell "Surprise!" ; half expecting Voldemort to appear out of nowhere and start throwing Unforgivable Curses_._ He looked over at his two friends; even tough girl Erika looked sort of scared. She turned to the other blond boy,

"Is this some kind of joke?" she asked, laughing nervously. Although it sounded more like she was trying to reassure herself more than just asking a question.

"If it is, it's not a very funny one," deadpanned Lukas, who turned around to intently study the so-called responsible adults who were supposed to be doing something about the fact that the Sorting Hat had just disappeared in a plume of smoke leaving an ominous threat in its wake. Arthur followed his gaze and, to his ultimate surprise, noticed that most teachers looked almost as frightened as the rest of the students. This wasn't just a stupid gag then, some serious stuff was going down at Hogwarts.

"I just got here and things are already going nuts. I hope it's not going to be like this all year... I wonder if the same thing happened to dad?" thought Arthur, somewhat exasperated. He wanted to have the delicious feast they'd been promised already! Thinking about the feast was Arthur's way of ignoring the panic button worthy situation. His stomach made an imaginary growl, all he had eaten on the train was candy, because there was no way in hell he would eat his mother's disgusting cooking. Who makes toast sandwiches anyways? Yuck!

An old wizard sitting at the head table stood abruptly. He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes that swept the ground and carried a long ornate wand. His blue eyes were light, bright, and sparkling. His nose was very long and crooked, perched on the end were half-moon spectacles.

Arthur's jaw dropped, figuratively; he slowly took out a Chocolate Frog Card he had collected earlier from their candy craze on the Hogwarts Express. On one side, the blue plasticized piece of cardboard showed a wizard who had the exact likeliness to the silver bearded man now standing at the podium. Arthur turned the card over in his hand, on the other side in fine gold cursive was printed:

"Albus Dumbledore"

The thick eye browed first-year couldn't stop staring at this imposing man at the podium. He radiated power and authority, yet kindness and loyalty. This must be the one wizard who was said to be the greatest wizard of the modern age. Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. How awesome was that?! The blond Kirkland was never told that he worked here. Arthur thought he would have to send a letter to his father about this later to ask if he had Dumbledore as his principal.

"Silence, please, everyone. You will follow your Head of Houses to your common rooms and stay there until further notice. The students who have not been Sorted yet will be welcomed by the HufflePuff house till the situation is resolved. Please line up in an orderly fashion." he commanded and instantly after he had said his first sentence, the room had fallen silent. Arthur's eyes widened, he was so cool! The youngest Kirkland would have never guessed that he would find a wrinkly old dude "cool" but there was a first for everything, right? You could say that he was a tad "star-struck" by the Headmaster.

However, Arthur was much less impressed by the morbidly obese wizard that waddled over to the Slytherin table shortly after Dumbledore ordered the students to be returned to their common rooms.

"Slytherins! Follow me!" he cried, out of breath. He huffed and puffed as he took his waddling steps to the Great Hall doors. It seemed like he had ran some kind of marathon, with the heavy breathing and the redness of his face, when in fact all he had done was descend a couple of steep stairs.

"Is this guy _really _our head of house?" Arthur turned to whisper to his two friends. He was sort of wishing that he wasn't. Even though he seemed nice, he wasn't the intimidating person Arthur had pictured their teacher in charge to be. Then again, the other Heads of Houses weren't impressive either. Except maybe for the tall, wiry woman who the blonde boy remembered as Professor McGonagall, she sported a strict, harsh look as she lead the Gryffindors who were all lined up in single file.

"Yeah, I think he is," replied Erika, lightly pushing the two boys aside to make herself room to walk in between them. She gave a small smile and wave to her brother who sped past them, accompanied by a strutting Lucius Malfoy.

"How embarrassing" deadpanned Lukas, he sighed and kept his placid expression as he observed the paintings along the wall.

Out of the blue, an extraordinarily loud voice was heard on the tall spiral staircase to their left. The three first years turned to see the blond Ravenclaw from earlier waving his hands around and yelling. The other students in his house seemed to be trying to ignore him, until he pulled out oversized garden shears and swung it around as if he was trying to grab something invisible attacking him.

"It's the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks! They've taken the Sorting Hat! There are Snorkacks everywhere! They're attacking me because only I know the truth!" he proclaimed, whipping his device of mass destruction to the left and nearly taking off the head of a Ravenclaw girl standing next to him. Most of his classmates had that famous "here we go again" look on their face and made no attempt to hide it. The House's Prefects looked awfully embarrassed as they tried to ignore him and keep walking, but a short man at the front of the line, who Arthur assumed was their Head of House stopped the forwards movement of the Ravenclaw students and turned around to face the boy,

"Xenophilius Lovegood! There are no such things as a Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, now please put that thing away before you cause any more damage," the extremely short man at the front of the line said in an exasperated voice, as if he had explained this a thousand times before.

Xenophilius reluctantly put away his contraption but continued to swat the air with his hands as the Ravenclaws disappeared around a corner.

"LUKAAAS!"

Arthur heard two sets of feet running to catch up with the Slytherins and someone call the other blond boy's name; he turned 180 degrees to see the spiky haired boy and the extremely tall boy rushing towards them, but Lukas seemed not to have heard this for some odd reason, the spiky haired boy was in fact quite loud.

Arthur turned to his friend,

"Hey Lukas, I think-" he started, when the blue eyed boy cut him off,

"Don't look at them, just keep walking and pretend you can't hear them and, in fact, just pretend they don't exist," Lukas said through his teeth and picked up his walking pace considerably. The two others had to start jogging to keep up.

Unfortunately for Lukas, their attempts were fruitless. The two older boys caught up quickly and the loud one grabbed his younger brother by the sleeve.

"HEY LUKAS! WHAT'S UP?" the spiky haired boy yelled loudly. Many of the other Slytherins turned back to look at the group, rolled their eyes and continued walking. Arthur even heard one of them make a nasty comment about "stupid loud-mouth Gryffindors". Arthur couldn't believe these two were related, Lukas barely spoke a word but his brother was the loudest, most obnoxious person Arthur had ever met in his entire life. The thick eye browed first year could somewhat see the resemblance between his friend and the tall older boy that was accompanying the loud brother. They both seemed quiet and scary.

"Matthias, will you shut up? You're being annoying again," said Lukas, glaring at his brother who was still hanging onto his sleeve.

"What? I can't say hi to my little bro?" Matthias asked, he put his hands on his hips and made a pouting face. Lukas rolled his eyes, clearly wanting him to leave.

"I thought I told you never to come and talk to me during school," the blue eyed first year replied, still giving his brother an ice cold stare.

"Why not?" whined Matthias, Arthur thought he sounded like a five year old who had just been denied candy. Arthur stared at the spikey haired boy, the only possible way that Lukas and Matthias could be related is if one of them was adopted, Arthur thought that this was a perfectly logical conclusion and decided to ask about it later.

Lukas sighed,

"You're embarrassing." He deadpanned, and with that he turned away and continued to climb the stairs.

Erika glanced quickly at Arthur and the two brothers, then ran up the stairs to join Lukas. Arthur noticed that Matthias wore the same expression that he had when Lukas was Sorted into Slytherin. He resisted the urge to laugh and raced back to his two friends. At the top of the stairs, the trio turned back around and saw the tall boy dragging Matthias away from the staircase and down the hall. Suddenly Matthias yelled,

"WHAAAT?!" it seemed like this was the first time he had been called embarrassing. The tall blonde ignored him and continued to drag him by the collar towards where the Gryffondor common room was.

The three first years giggled a bit at the hilarious scene playing out before them and then rushed to rejoin their group.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

The group reached an obscure hallway that they were 80% sure their Slytherin comrades had travelled down earlier, but Arthur knew that they were in fact, very much lost.

"Ugh, why can't they put up signs or something?" complained Erika as she trudged further down the dark hallway. She looked around nervously and squinted, as if she was trying to see through the darkness.

"Well, the castle is constantly reshaping and moving itself around so the signs would be confusing," clarified Lukas, as he pulled out his 12 inch Hawthorn wand out of his robes. He held his wand out in front of him and pronounced in a firm voice,

"_Lumos,_" the tip of his wand burst into light and they were able to see further down the hall.

Arthur was starting to get frustrated, as if his day wasn't bad enough! First his mother embarrasses him, then he gets a death threat from a magical, one hundred year old hat, then the feast is cancelled, and now he's lost. The blonde wizard did a facepalm, exasperated. Some good things did happen to him, but Arthur was simply too much of a grumpy person to recognize them.

"This is getting us nowhere. I can't take any more of this bad luck right now. I'm going back the other way." Arthur proclaimed as he spun on his heels and marched the other way, clearly annoyed.

Erika pursed her lips and frowned, thinking. Lukas turned to her and wondered what kind of crazy thing she was planning.

"I know just what we need!" she exclaimed suddenly, scaring both of her classmates. Arthur whipped around again and was surprised at how peppy she still was in this dire situation.

"A map?" asked Lukas, sarcastically stating the obvious. The annoying red eyed girl sighed and turned to face him, pointing her finger she exclaimed,

"We need a _Muggle Song Intermission_!" she pumped her fist into the air and before Arthur could ask what in the world a _'Muggle Song Intermission'_ was, Erika took a deep breath and started singing in a ridiculously high pitched voice,

"ABC, it's easy as 1 2 3, as simple as, do re mi, ABC, 1 2 3, Baby you and me! ABC, it's easy as-" Erika spun around in a circle, singing until she was interrupted by the platinum haired boy,

"Isn't that song from last year?" Lukas asked quizzically, he then smirked at Arthur who wore the most confused face complete with eyes twice their normal size.

"Yeah, but it's still...Hang on, how do you know this?" Erika asked. Arthur thought her voice sounded unnecessarily loud, but it didn't matter much, because the blond Kirkland assumed that there was no one else in this darkened hall.

"It's not illegal to listen to the Muggle radio stations, you know" replied Lukas, as he put away his wand after muttering a spell to extinguish the light.

Arthur was still shocked. He had never been allowed to listen to the Muggle radio, and he doubted his parents even had a Muggle radio in their manor. In fact, Arthur had previously heard them commenting on how stupid the Muggles were, so the blond first-year had always assumed they were some kind of evil. But then again, his two friends knew Muggle songs and maybe even had non-wizard friends! Arthur wondered if he could have Muggle friends, maybe in the summer he could go down to the village and play football with them. He doubted his parents would approve though, maybe he could convince them?

Arthur's musings were interrupted by a tall figure emerging from behind a corner,

"You children are supposed to be in your commons room, дa?"

The man had a big, slightly crooked nose, silver hair and eyes that were a strange color purple. The trio, being already freaked out by being alone in the dark hall, automatically assumed the man was some kind of ghost or evil entity. They all screamed, except for Lukas and ran down the hall all the way to their commons room, they could hear the figure behind them chanting something that sounded like,

"Kolkolkolkolkol..."

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

The three first years arrived in their commons room, completely out of breath. They had to wait at the stone wall, what Arthur had been told was the entrance to their commons room, for another student to tell them the password. This other student turned out to be none other than Lucius Malfoy, accompanied by a boy their age with shoulder-length, greasy black hair that Arthur remembered from the Sorting as Severus Snape.

Arthur found that Lucius spoke with a tone that was quite patronizing. He thought about mouthing off to their prefect but decided to keep his mouth shut after he saw him throw a Vanishing Curse at a mouse effortlessly, without even giving a second glance as the poor creature was whisked away. When they entered, the Slytherins gave them a quick look, deemed them uninteresting and returned to their conversations. So the trio found three unoccupied armchairs in a corner near the window and sat down.

"Who or what do you think that guy in the hall was?" Erika asked, not long after they sat down.

"I have no idea whatsoever, and since you both started screaming, I didn't get a chance to ask him anything," chided Lukas as he dusted off his robes.

"On another note, you've got to admit that Sorting Hat thing was quite strange," added the platinum blonde first year, he leaned forwards in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees.

Erika gulped and turned pale, Arthur could clearly see she was terrified by that experience, who wouldn't be?

"Yeah, I don't know what happened, but I hope they'll solve it soon. What if there's some kind of... deadly curse going around the castle?" Erika added nervously.

Arthur, in a hurry to reassure his two classmates, interrupted:

"Probably not. I bet it was some student pulling a prank. Anyways, I'm going to bed, I'm exhausted and I've got to unpack,"

His friends looked so tired and scared that Arthur decided to keep the Sorting Hat's words to himself as they climbed up the stairs to bed.

**ARTIE NO! STOP PULLING A HARRY POTTER AND NOT TELLING ANYONE ABOUT YOUR PROBLEMS! Lol. **

**Yes guys. The whole "toast sandwich" thing is legitimate. Look it up on Wikipedia. Poor England, I guess we know where he got his cooking skills from...**

**If you're wondering how Erika could possibly sing a Jackson 5 song, well it is said that Slytherin prefers Purebloods, but that doesn't mean you can't have Half-Bloods or the occasional Muggle-Born or Purebloods that attended Muggle public school until the age of 11 right? *cough* hint about her background *cough* **

**Do you guys have any theories about the Sorting Hat's disappearance? It's obviously the Kacky Snorgles- whoops, Crumple-Horned Snorkacks! What else would it be? *sarcastic cough* **

**On another note, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Don't forget to follow/favorite and drop a review if you liked! See you next time! **

**The Countess In Red**


	5. Escaping Death and Flying Armour Heads

**OHMYGAWD45FOLLOWERSHOWTHEHECKDIDIEVENMANAGETHATTHISISAMAINGINEVEREVENEXCPECTEDTHISOMGHOWMYWRITINGISN' 1MILLIONFOLLOWERSONTHEIRSTORIESBUT45ISANACTUALLYACCOMPLISHEMENTFORMEIMGOINGTOTRYTOGETTO50NOWTHANKYOUALLSOMUCH! **

***takes breath* Ahem, on to the intro. Hello readers! I present to you, Chapter 5! Thanks to all for the reviews, follows and favorites! You make me all so happy. :) **

**DISCLAIMER: If I owned Hetalia or Harry Potter, there would be theme parks dedicated to them in every major city around the world. **

.O.o.O.O.o.O.O.o.O.O.o.O.O.o.O.O.o.O.O.o.O.O.o.O.O.o.O.O.o.O.O.o.O.O.o.O.O.o.O

Despite the comfort of the silver and green draped queen-sized beds, Arthur couldn't possibly be expected to sleep after the day's events. So he tossed and turned for over an hour, trying to think of other things, like how he was lucky enough to be roommates with Lukas, even though the two other boys in his dormitory seemed extremely sinister. Avery and Mulciber, they called themselves, though it seemed strange to the blond boy that they were unwilling to be called by, and much less reveal for that matter, their first names. But that was unimportant at the moment, as the thought of the snake shaped purple smoke kept haunting his mind. The blond Kirkland had a deathly fear of snakes. Arthur had never admitted this to anyone nor was ever planning to tell anyone anything about his secret phobia. It could be used against him in so many different ways! He shuddered at the thought of finding the horrifying neon yellow rubber snake he had once seen at a store, tucked into his robes. Some people around here seemed the type to pull such a prank, so Arthur had to be especially careful. The mental image of red eyed Erika (who was exactly the type Arthur had in mind when he thought of the people who would pull this trick) tucking plastic snakes all over his personal effects certainly didn't help his sleepless mind. Arthur flipped over on his back and stared up at the ceiling. Maybe, just maybe, he could go out and get some fresh air? But wait, didn't the Head of House Slug-something-or-other tell them not to leave the commons room? Oh well, whatever. It wasn't like anything bad was going to happen! Hogwarts was the safest place in the Universe, other than Gringotts of course. Unfortunately, the blond Kirkland didn't realize just how wrong he was.

"It'll just be for a second, and I'll wake Lukas too," thought Arthur as he silently rolled over to face his new friend's bed and silently crept over to shake him awake, not giving a second thought to whether Lukas would be upset with him or not for being awakened in the dead of night.

As Arthur reached his bed he looked down on the platinum haired boy's sleeping face and reached out to poke him when the Lukas' deep blue eyes snapped open suddenly to stare him right in the face.

The thick eye browed boy let out a small yell and clapped his hands over his mouth, for fear of waking up the others (he had noticed the black haired boy Avery roll over on his other side not long ago). Everything was silent until Mulciber began snoring. The platinum blonde sat up to stare at his new friend and gave him a quizzical look, as if questioning why he got so frightened.

"Why are you so shocked? I wasn't even sleeping," he said, sliding his blanket back and placing his feet on the stone floor. He then noticed Kirkland's strange expression and raised a thin blonde eyebrow, smirking.

"What are you doing?"

Arthur immediately stopped trying to stuff his fist down his throat. Lukas snorted sarcastically and rolled his eyes and his friend's behaviour,

"My god, how can these people get so easily scared?" the blue eyed boy thought, slightly impressed by his friends somewhat meek dispositions as he recalled the previous event involving a Muggle song and a creepy purple eyed man.

"Ehmm... I wanted to go for a walk, I can't sleep. Want to come?" Arthur asked quickly, trying to divert Lukas' attention from the recent mildly embarrassing occurrence. Lukas tilted his head, looking curious,

"You couldn't sleep either, huh. I kept thinking about that purple smoke," the blue eyed boy admitted, grabbing his cloak and walking towards the doorway leading into the commons room. Arthur was about to follow him when Lukas suddenly turned around,

"Wait, what about Erika?" Lukas said, thinking of their red eyed friend. He knew that Erika would be angry at them if she found out that they went on an adventure without her. Even if it was just a walk outside, she loved anything mildly dangerous or eccentric. But even though Arthur knew this, he just scoffed, gave him his signature 'sassy-know-it-all' look and said,

"Two boys... Sneaking into the girl's dormitory... Filled with girls who are still scared because of the Hat issue... In the middle of the night to wake up our friend... Who is probably also extra paranoid…yeah, that's a _great_ idea, we totally won't get killed."

Lukas gave a small 'oh', as he wasn't sure yet what to make of Arthur's sassy attitude, but the thick eye browed first-year was actually right. Going to wake up Erika was a pretty bad idea. Arthur smirked, he was right and Lukas knew it! Arthur thought he had sounded pretty cool too in the way he made his point. Arrogance was almost literally radiating off the blond Kirkland. Finally, Lukas said,

"Yeah, I guess you're right," he then proceeded to walk down the stairs and out the commons room door followed closely by a wand toting Arthur. They really had no idea how dangerous this night was going to be.

.O.o.O.O.o.O.O.o.O.O.o.O.O.o.O.O.o.O.O.o.O.O.o.O.O.o.O.O.o.O.O.o.O.O.o.O.O.o.O

The pair now found themselves in a fortunately candle lit hall, they had been wandering around for a few minutes now but were still completely wide awake. The walk had not helped them clear their minds at all. Lukas let out a sigh and flicked the right side platinum blonde bangs out of his deep blue eyes. The bangs on his left side were held back by a cross shaped hair clip. Arthur noticed the clip the first day they met but though nothing of it, now he wondered why Lukas didn't just use two clips, that was he could keep his hair out of his face on both sides. So he turned to his friend and inquired about just that. Lukas looked back at him and said,

"I only have one, that's why," Arthur looked at him; it wasn't quite the answer he had expected. He had expected something a little less... obvious. So Arthur pressed on,

"Why don't you just buy another, then?" Lukas sighed and turned to him, glaring. The blonde Kirkland suddenly got the hint that his friend really didn't want to be asked about this topic, although he didn't understand why Lukas would get so sensitive about a simple hair clip. Arthur opened his mouth to say something, he wasn't planning on apologizing, just saying something to let Lukas know he didn't have to answer when his friend cut in,

"I can't buy another; it's one of a kind. Someone gave this to me, as a gift. And even if I did want my hair completely out of my face, I would look stupid and girly if I had two hair clips," Lukas replied in a short, clipped tone, effectively cutting off the conversation.

Arthur nodded and kept walking in silence. The portraits hanging on the walls were all sleeping in their various environments; a few knights were asleep at a banquet table, their faces pressed in their dinner plates and a woman clothed in a white dress was drooling all over her expensive looking chair. Arthur wasn't sure if the paintings had to be cleaned up after the inhabitants had made a mess or if the landscape always remained perfectly neat. Surely this was one of the great mysteries of magic! Perhaps there was a book at the library on this subject. The blond Kirkland planned on suggesting they head over to see if there was indeed an answer to his question at the library when Lukas suddenly stopped in his tracks, he held out his arm to stop Arthur from advancing as well.

Urging Arthur to be silent by putting his index finger on his mouth, he crept around the corner of the hall they were currently standing in to go into another short hallway that ended in a staircase. This corridor was less lit than the previous one, and had no doors leading off anywhere. The only exit was the one staircase.

Both boys pressed themselves against the wall and shuffled along, Lukas in the lead. Arthur could now hear a slight scraping sound and some faint hissing coming from the staircase. He felt his palms starting to sweat, not as much as during the Sorting, mind you, but enough that he had to reach down and wipe his hands on his robes.

Strangely, there was an energy of excitement and curiosity surrounding both boys. These two first years were clearly adventurers. Arthur and Lukas snuck further forwards towards the noise, almost giddy. They arrived at the middle point in the hallway, giving them a perfect vantage point to see the whole staircase, plus a bit of the landing below. What they saw shocked them.

It was the purple smoke that had been seen swirling around the Sorting Hat. Lukas took a few steps back, shocked. He bumped into Arthur who grabbed the wall to avoid falling and attracting the attention of this purple menace. Even more worrisome, the smoke seemed to be attacking someone, a student. The older female student was barely visible, as the purple substance swirled around her at top speed. Suddenly the smoke stopped spinning and passed straight through the student. She swayed for a second, and then collapsed to the ground.

"Is she... dead?" Arthur asked in a small voice, quivering with fright. They needed to get out of here! What if they were the next targets?

"I don't know... Hang on; I think I can check, _Homenum Revelio._" Lukas said and flicked his wand. He focused for a second and squinted his deep blue eyes, after a moment he said:

"She's not dead. And that purple stuff is definitely not a person," he started backing up, motioning for the blond Kirkland to do the same.

Arthur hoped Lukas planned on executing a speedy get away and not wasting time alerting some teacher. That smoke stuff looked pretty fast and could probably catch up to them in a second. Besides, the student would probably just be found in the morning, right?

"Should we help her?" Lukas asked, in a quiet tone. His gaze was directly upon the female student. Arthur looked at his friend, shocked,

"Self-preservation, Lukas. Self-preservation," the blonde wizard reminded his friend. Was Lukas mad? That was a horrible idea! They would just suffer the same fate as that girl. Throwing yourself into a dangerous situation like that was the most un-Slytherin thing they could possibly do.

"Wait. There's someone else here." Lukas said urgently. Arthur was confused, another person? They weren't rushing to help and the bushy eye browed boy didn't hear any running footsteps. What was this other wizard doing?

"_Hisssssss... Death... Bad students... out of their beds... Hissssssss" _

Both boys' heads snapped towards the source of the sound, which just happened to be the purple smoke.

"Great, just great" thought Arthur. He looked to Lukas, who was now the appointed plan maker for this mission.

The purple smoke formed a human like shape and began climbing up the steps at an unnaturally fast rate. Arthur said some choice words that his mother would surely not approve of him saying and turned to run. Lukas followed, tailing him quickly. The pair charged down the halls of Hogwarts, no longer taking the precaution to be quiet. Arthur considered yelling for help, but quickly dismissed the thought; it would just attract unwanted attention from that monster chasing them.

Unfortunately, Arthur was starting to doubt his friend's directional sense, Lukas was taking so many twists and turns that Arthur wasn't quite sure where exactly they were. Lost again! If this kept up, he'd never be able to make it through the year, much less the next six years. The blond Kirkland spared a glance backwards and yes, that monstrous purple smoke monster was still after them. He knew the prospect of a purple smoke monster would have sounded ridiculous previously; he probably would have laughed at the person who suggested it. But now, it wasn't quite as funny as it could have been.

The two boys, still barreling ahead at top speed, turned a sharp corner. Arthur skidded a little and had to crouch to keep his balance. Managing not to fall, he stood to his feet at took off running again. He briefly wondered why the floor was so wet and slippery, too bad he would find out the answer to that question soon. Arthur soon passed his blue eyed friend who was starting to slow down his pace.

"Hurry up!" yelled the blond Kirkland, turning back to look at his friend. He turned back just long enough not to notice that a man with pale eyes, thin grey hair that hung loosely around his face and a hunched over posture had suddenly materialized in front of him.

Arthur yelled loudly as he flew straight into the scraggly man at top speed. And Lukas, not ready to stop, flew into Arthur. But the man, as wiry as he seemed, only teetered slightly before steadying himself. Arthur, slightly dazed, backed away from this figure, alarmed. Lukas rubbed his nose in pain, he had smashed into his thick eyebrowed friend in a sprint and was now feeling the consequences. The youngest Kirkland turned slightly and noticed Lukas' actions,

"Only the protruding part on the face seems to get harmed in situations like this," Arthur thought, although he didn't think of this for long, as he remembered the imminent danger they were facing. He looked up at the old man, worried he might also be a conspirator in the mystery of the purple mist.

Recognition suddenly flashed on the faces of the two boys, this was the caretaker, Argus Filch. He had been introduced briefly before to them as they chatted with a helpful older Slytherin named Wilfred Flint in the commons room, who, along with some valuable tips, introduced Mr. Filch with a plethora of items that were among many on the caretaker's "Forbidden at Hogwarts" list. The older Slytherin also instructed them to kick Mrs. Norris, who was Argus Filch's cat, if they ever saw her. Arthur remembered having the impression that this was not the correct man to run into while breaking multiple rules.

Yet here he was.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here? Students out of bed! If I could have my way, I'd lock you in the dungeons and starve you. But instead, I'll have to report you to your Head of House. That'll be Professor Slughorn, right? Come with me!" Argus Filch said, putting down his mop, grabbing both blond boys by their arms and dragging them down the hall. Confirming once and for all his identity, an ugly, scrawny cat with lamp-like eyes and fur the colour of dust was meandering around Filch's feet, hissing at Arthur and Lukas. Arthur began to understand at last why Flint wanted them to kick her.

Being dragged around the corridors by caretaker Argus Filch was less than pleasant, but Arthur was busying his mind by formulating a cunning escape plan and the young wizard could tell the other blond boy was thinking the same. After thinking for some time, he finally had it. In good timing as well, since they were in a prime location for his plan to be carried out and were approaching Slughorn's office. Arthur conveniently "tripped and fell" just before the staircase, he avoided falling face first by landing on his palms. His face was spared but his hands were not, they were scrapped from the rough stone floor. Arthur lived a pampered life so as soon as he noticed his hands, he had to bite down on his tongue to keep himself from wailing and whining. Lukas swooped down and quietly whispered:

"What's the plan?" the blue eyed boy then noted Arthur's scrapped hands and looked up at the blond boy's face. Lukas vaguely wondered why he looked like he was about to cry, but rapidly returned to the problem at hand.

Arthur was ready with his cunning, clever plan. This was not the time to be thinking about the consequences his plan entailed for Argus Filch. This was self-preservation!

"Get Peeves, the poltergeist. I'll take care of the rest," Arthur muttered to his friend, the blue eyed boy stood back up quickly as Mr. Filch came marching over.

Lukas wondered how he would be able to attract a poltergeist and he decided with the obvious option. He backed far away from Arthur and Mr. Filch and began to call quietly for Peeves.

Arthur realized the approach his friend was taking and to cover up the noises of his calling, Arthur began to wail loudly about his cut,

"MY HAAAAND! IT'S BLEEEEDING! I'M GOING TO DIIIIEEEEE!"

Mrs. Norris hissed at the loud sounds that the young Kirkland was making and ran to hide behind her master. Filch, clearly annoyed, attempted in vain to corral Arthur into getting over it and to continue walking. Arthur simply yelled about his cut louder and refused to get up. It felt good to get out all the complaining and whining he had been holding in ever since he first hurt his hands. The blue eyed young Slytherin began to call slightly louder for the poltergeist. It was a miracle no one had woken up yet from the noise they were making. Arthur began to get worried that instead of going to Professor Slughorn, he would come to them with all the racket they were making.

Suddenly, a head adorned with a jester's hat popped out of the wall next to Lukas' own.

"Heeheehee, ickle firsties in trouble! Heeheehee, maybe I'll just get the long bearded oldie now! Heeeeee!" Peeves exclaimed, pulling his body further through the wall. He was taunting Lukas, and the blue eyed boy knew it. All he had to do was keep his cool, bargain with him calmly and he would get his way. It always worked. Lukas stepped in front of the poltergeist, he was aware it would do nothing since Peeves didn't have a real body, but it was all image.

"I need you to distract Mr. Filch for me. Do anything you can to lure him away from us," Lukas asked, staring down the poltergeist with cool blue eyes. Peeves looked slightly surprised at the Lukas' demeanour, but continued with his taunts,

"And what will the little ickle barrette wearing firstie do for me?" the poltergeist giggled and floated upwards above Lukas' head. The blue eyed boy sighed, he thought it would come to this. What could he possibly offer?

He heard from Erika, who first told them of Peeves, that the Slytherin House ghost, the Bloody Baron, was the only one who could control the poltergeist. Maybe he could keep the Bloody Baron away from Peeves for a few hours. Lukas spoke up,

"For one hour, I will keep the Bloody Baron away from you and whatever shenanigans you may choose to be accomplishing at that time,"

Peeves thought for a moment, then a wide grin stretched itself out on his rounded face. He floated up at the ceiling and exclaimed,

"You got a deal, barrette boy!"

It was at this moment that Argus Filch was alerted of the presence of the poltergeist, he whipped around,

"PEEVES!" he yelled dramatically to the ceiling, where Peeves was sitting on a chandelier, holding a few heads of armour that usually adorned the hallways of Hogwarts. Peeves let out a laugh, stuck his tongue out at Filch, and began flinging the heads. Arthur quickly stopped whining and scrambled out of the way over to where Lukas was standing. A small smile was beginning to draw itself on Lukas' normally expressionless face. Arthur watched eagerly at the sight of Argus Filch attempting to bat away flying armour heads with a wooden broom he had retrieved from a nearby supply closet. A small smile drew itself on Arthur's face as well.

Peeves then began floating down the stairs and onto the landing, now throwing armour heads at statues and yelling "STRIKE!" as they fell down. Argus Filch let out another angry howl and began to pursue the trouble-making poltergeist down the staircase and out of sight.

Lukas looked at Arthur with a mixed expression of awe and annoyedness, he said:

"Nice quick thinking. But your plan would have backfired if I hadn't been there to negotiate, it was a really risky idea,"

Arthur smirked triumphantly at his friend and said,

"But it worked to perfection! And just for the record, I thought about your advanced negotiating skills when I came up with this plan," the young Kirkland puffed his chest pridefully. Even though it wasn't his best work, they had managed to lure away Mr. Filch after all!

"Sure you did," said Lukas sarcastically. The blue eyed boy stepped past Arthur and walked towards the staircase,

"We'd better get going, with all that howling you were doing, it's a miracle no one came to investigate," Lukas turned, gave a sly smile to his friend and paused at the top of the stairs.

Arthur's ears turned red at the memory of the earlier event,

"It was just an act," he said, which was partially true. But Lukas didn't seem to believe him. This wasn't a surprise, since the thick eye browed boy's face was now going red with embarrassment. To Lukas, a red face was always a sign of a lie.

"Sure it was," repeated Lukas, who then proceeded to slide down the long banister all the way to the landing below. He disembarked nimbly on his feet and then waved for Arthur to do the same.

Not wanting to be surpassed, Arthur took a running start and leapt onto the banister at top speed. He flew down his make-shift slide, robes billowing behind him and his backside feeling raw from the banister's rough material. Arthur suddenly noticed the landing was approaching faster than he would have liked, he swung his feet out in front of him and they hit the flagstone hard, abruptly stopping all the velocity Arthur had accumulated sliding down the banister. The blonde boy managed to stay on his feet, albeit stumbling forwards a bit. Lukas skillfully raised an eyebrow at him and continued walking, Arthur then quickening his pace to catch him.

"Should we tell Erika about all this?" asked the blue eyed boy to his friend, turning his delicate, yet apathetic features to face him.

"We should, I want to tell her about how excellent my escape plan was," Arthur replied, he could just picture himself telling an amazing, slightly exaggerated version of his tale to Erika. He would have to include a part about him heroically battling a giant demonic version of Mrs. Norris with a sword so that he would seem not only intelligent, but completely badass. The deadpan voice of Lukas interrupted his daydream,

"Yes but more importantly, we should mention the purple mist creature attacking us," Lukas explained, rolling his eyes. The blue eyed boy could just picture Arthur's daydream, and it exasperated him.

"Huh? Oh yeah, of course," the other young wizard said, he was continuing his heroic musings about fighting a gargantuan cat and got distracted from the conversation. In fact, Arthur had no idea what he was saying yes to. It was one of those situations where you simply agree and hope you weren't agreeing to eat a whole pack of sprout flavoured Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans.

They walked in silence for quite a while, processing the night's events. From sneaking out, to watching the purple mist creature, to getting chased by the purple mist creature, to running into Filch, almost getting busted by Filch, to using Peeves to escape and to sliding down the banister.

Their first night at Hogwarts was one of many eventful nights to come in the trio's future years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O

Arthur didn't remember much after that. He vaguely recalled muttering the password and then stumbling into his bed, completely exhausted. He woke up the next morning to Avery and Mulciber yelling at each other about who took who's socks. The blond Kirkland rolled over and tried to press his pillow over his ears, it was too early for this kind of thing. Unfortunately for him, Lukas was already awake and dressed. He promptly walked over to Arthur and yanked the pillow off his face. Arthur flipped onto his stomach and mumbled,

"Go away. It's too early," Lukas rolled his eyes, eye rolling seemed to be the blue eyed boy's favourite pass time.

"It's nine in the morning. You're going to miss breakfast if you don't get up now," Lukas reminded his friend, smacking him on the head.

Arthur was suddenly reminded of how hungry he was. He hadn't had supper! Arthur couldn't remember a day in his life where he didn't have a dinner with at least two courses. He vaguely acknowledged the growling in his stomach and got up. Slowly, but he did eventually get up. Lukas glanced around their commons room, Mulciber and Avery were just leaving out the door. The blue eyed boy watched them depart intently and once they were gone, turned to Arthur,

"Erika is in the commons room, I'll go get her and we can discuss last night's events," Lukas promptly explained, then turned on his heels and went out the door.

The words took a moment to register in Arthur's mind, but suddenly he realized, he was still in his pyjamas! And consequently, he had chosen his Gunder The Blue Bunny pyjamas. Gunder The Blue Bunny was a children's program that played every Saturday morning on the WWN radio. Arthur's mother had insisted he pack them, even though Arthur thought he was quite too old to be wearing Gunder themed bed wear. So the youngest Kirkland quickly changed into his wizard robes and threw his embarrassing pyjamas in the bottom of his trunk. Just as he was tying his green and silver tie, Erika waltzed in, followed by Lukas.

"Hey Iggy!" she exclaimed and promptly sat down on Avery's empty bed. Arthur cringed upon hearing his nickname, Erika wasn't about to let that go, was she?

"What was it that was so top secret you couldn't tell me at breakfast? And will Avery mind that I'm sitting on his bed? He might not notice but I'd rather not upset him, it is only our second day here after all," Erika continued, talking excitedly and waving her arms about.

Arthur pondered on which questions to answer first, since he found her whole speech very confusing, when Lukas spoke up,

"We went out for a walk outside last night and had a bit of an adventure," he said calmly, leaning against one of the tall bed posters and crossing his arms. Arthur and Lukas suddenly noticed their friend's features had darkened,

"You… went… on an adventure… without me?! How could you not invite me?! You guys are so mean! I wanted to be included in this too!" she said, sounding hurt and almost angry. Erika crossed her arms and stood.

Maybe, Arthur thought, he should have gone and invited her, even though she was in the girl's dorm room. The blonde boy decided that maybe if she understood the fact that going into the girl's dorm was not politically correct, she would understand. But Arthur was no master of tact, and his explanation came out wrong,

"Well, you're a girl and…" Erika cut him off before he could say more,

"What? So this is about me being a girl? Am I not cool and tough enough for your little adventure? I'll show you tough!" she said, and started off towards Arthur. The youngest Kirkland internally sighed, he shouldn't have said anything in the first place, this was not good, not good at all. He was now going to be beaten to a pulp by a girl because of his bad decisions. Arthur shut his eyes, awaiting the punch to the face when the other blonde boy intervened,

"We saw the purple mist creature,"

Erika stopped in her tracks and turned to Lukas,

"What? No way! Tell me everything!" she exclaimed and immediately stopped her menacing advancing toward Arthur.

Lukas briefly explained how they had seen the purple mist knock out a student, then about how it chased both boys down the hall. Erika laughed out loud when Lukas had talked about getting caught by Mr. Filch and she then continued with a story her brother had told her about Argus Filch which, in the end, had the whole trio of first-years laughing loudly. Lukas then continued with Arthur's plan and Peeves with the heads of armour, Arthur had held onto a small sliver of hope that Lukas would include him fighting a monstrous version of Ms. Norris, but that didn't happen, though he did in fact exaggerate the part where they slid down the banister by telling Erika that Arthur had fallen flat on his face. Finally, Lukas ended the story.

There was a slight pause after the other blonde boy was finished explaining where Erika seemed to be thinking hard, she then said,

"Firstly, when you slide down a banister, you have to make sure you keep your hands on the banister so you don't fall flat on your face…"

Arthur quickly jumped in,

"I didn't fa-" but Erika interrupted as quickly as he had intervened,

"Secondly, you ended up owing someone something, which is never good. It would have been sufficient to simply blackmail Peeves instead of offering something, but at least the task you agreed to is pretty easy," she then proceeded to flop down on Lukas' bed, the blue eyed boy crinkled his nose at this and then turned away, like he was pretending it wasn't happening right in front of him. Arthur now had concrete proof, along with Lukas' overly neat trunk, his colour coded quills and alphabetically organized school books, that his friend was a total neat freak.

"Thirdly, you should be glad you weren't caught by that thing! What were you thinking, getting close like that! And lastly, I really don't know what to make of the purple smoke creature, from the fact that there was someone nearby not rushing to help, I think that there is probably someone controlling it and that they have to be close by to make it do it's bidding," Erika continued, closing her blood red eyes in thought. She then paused a moment, and her eyes snapped open and an excited smile curved onto her face,

"So HERE'S THE PLAN! We're going to sneak out again, this time you will _include me. _We're gonna attract the purple mist monster, then we're going to throw a tracking or even paralyzing curse at whoever's controlling it. And we'll be able to tell who it is! Great plan right?" Erika finally finished, jumping to her feet. She stuck her hand out and looked at the other two.

"Who's in?" she asked, her gaze flitting between the two boys. Lukas placed his hand overtop of hers and said,

"I'll do it,"

The two first-years then looked at emerald eyed Arthur expectantly. To Arthur, the plan sounded risky, and could possibly get them killed. But what the heck, he was on an adventure! And Slytherins, as self-preserving as they were, valued fraternity. Not joining them would be the second most un-Slytherin thing Arthur could do! The blond Kirkland grinned, he wouldn't let them down,

"I'm in. Let's catch this guy and make him pay for us missing our start-of-term feast!"

Arthur placed his hand on Lukas'. Erika's eyes widened and she suddenly spoke up,

"Wait, we need a team name!"

"A what?" asked Lukas, slightly confused. This was sudden.

"How about A.L.E? The first letters of Arthur, Lukas and Erika?" Arthur suggested. This team name thing was slightly exciting! It sounded like they could be a group of Aurors already!

"Why is my name last?" asked Erika, her red eyes peering at Arthur.

"Besides, ale is alcohol. Not a good team name, in my opinion," added Lukas, ever so emotionless.

"How about the 'Epic Super Magic Crime Fighters Of Destruction' it could be E.S.M.C.F.O.D for short!" exclaimed Erika, eagerly. She looked excitedly at the two boys, waiting for approval.

"NO!" interjected Lukas and Arthur simultaneously. That was the dumbest team name Arthur had ever heard in his entire existence, besides if they didn't hurry, they would miss breakfast too.

"Why not The Magic Trio?" said Lukas. The annoying red eyed girl and the thick eyebrowed boy's eyes lit up. That was a good name! Much better than the E.S.M.C.F.O.D's.

"Yeah, I like that, The Magic Trio," said Arthur in approval. Erika gave a huge grin and yelled,

"Alright Magic Trio, let's do this! On three; One, Two, Three!"

Arthur, Lukas and Erika all looked at each other, threw their hands in the air and simultaneously exclaimed,

"MAGIC TRIO!"

O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O

**I tried to make this nice and long for you guys to apologize for the long wait. A.L.E is what I call the Magic Trio in all of my organizational character sheets and plot papers, because writing Magic Trio is wayyyyyy too long, in my opinion. **

**I hope you all liked it! Review, follow and favourite if you did! See you next time! :D **

**MAGIC TRIO, AWAY! **

**The Countess In Red **


End file.
